THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 145 



sweating and equalizing before they can be packed. The other kind 

 contains the loose and drier berries, which are to go immediately to 

 the stemmer and grader, and which would not separate from the stems 

 if they were made to equalize. 



Covering. If the weather has been favorable, the raisins may have 

 been dried and cured in twelve days. Of these twelve days, the first 

 seven or eight were used for drying the upper side of the raisins. On 

 the seventh or eighth day they were turned, and on the twelfth day 

 they were ready to put in the sweatboxes. But this is fast drying, 

 and drying under favorable circumstances, with a dry wind blowing 

 gently all the time. But sometimes it takes a much longer time to dry, 

 say from fourteen to twenty-one days. In Fresno, where the weather 

 is less favorable, the drying of the first crop may require from two to 

 three weeks. In HI Cajon it always takes two or three weeks for the 

 raisins to dry, and in Orange county the drying sometimes requires 

 from thirty days to five weeks. In Malaga the drying is accomplished 

 quicker than in California, because there they cover the raisin floors 

 every night with canvas, and in the morning, when the canvas is un- 

 rolled, the raisins are yet warm. The drying, then, has been contin- 

 ued all night, and the raisins have not had time to cool when they 

 meet the first rays of the sun. In California, again, our raisins are , 

 cold, possibly even wet with dew or rain, and it sometimes takes the 

 sun until noon to dry up the moisture accumulated through the night. 



To counteract this absorption of moisture, many of the raisin-grow- 

 ers in Orange county, California, especially around Santa Ana and \/ 

 McPherson, cover the trays with canvas every night. This method is 

 to be recommended wherever there is any difficulty in curing either 

 the first or the second crop. If this method is employed, I am satis- 

 fied that raisins could be grown and properly cured in localities where 

 otherwise no raisin cult is possible. The method of covering the rai- 

 sin trays at Santa Ana is as follows, varied by different growers, but 

 in the main the same everywhere. The trays are placed together in 

 lonrj rows ; about twenty yards long is found to be most convenient. 

 The width of the row is just the width of two trays, or five feet. Thus 

 the row of trays laden with raisin grapes is about sixty feet long by 

 five feet wide. Along the north end of this long row of trays are 

 driven down small posts every six or ten feet, and left extending about 

 two feet above the ground. Along the south side of the row of trays 

 smaller posts are driven down at the same distances, but not allowed to 

 extend so high above the surface of the soil. These pegs or small 

 posts may best be slanting outward, or from the trays. Along the high 

 posts is strung a wire in such a way that it cannot easily get loose. 

 To a long canvas cover are now secured small rings for running on the 

 wire, and on the other side larger rings to hook over the smaller posts 

 in front. If the canvas is only one yard wide, two widths must be 

 sewed together so as to make the canvas six feet wide. The trays, 

 which are two and one-half feet by three feet, when placed side by 

 side will just form a drying floor of five feet, large enough to be cov- 

 ered by the canvas six feet wide. The cost of canvas is six and one- 

 half cents a yard by the bale. 



